Recent posts: Valeria Croft

Russian DJ and producer Valeria Croft is back at Piston with a fine slab of deep house goodness. “Singular/Plural” is her follow up to the collaboration with Lights Electronika which gained support from all quarters.

“Singular” gets us into gear with a smooth grooving deep house vibe. The intro boasts a nice chunky kick with a cool housey synth and percussions build up gently to form a funky rhythm. The bass is minimal here which gives the track a lot of character with vocal samples adding contrast. Very cool track and expertly crafted, great stuff.

“Plural” goes a little deeper and grittier with a much more organic sound. Heavy kicks and crisp hats are the base for a strong and steady rhythmic groove. The bassline takes centre stage as it bounces along with stunning chords providing that house feeling. Again we see vocals applied to the sound beautifully and high pitched strings give a new insight to the track. Top stuff here and a sure fire hit for those deeper sets.

Piston Recordings has come a long way and gained the support of top jocks all over the world since its creation in 2007. Now in its fifth year, and with an ever increasing artist roster, the quality continues to flow in style. Coming soon we have a compilation, “Best Of Piston Recordings 2012″ to celebrate a successful year for the Portuguese outfit. The compilation consists of superb deep house and techno cuts from an impressive line-up including, Piek, Brett Lawrence, Accatone, Baltj More, Daniel Karma, Garcy Noise, Oraa, Valeria Croft, Vasco, Lights Electronica, newly signed Dimitry Liss and label founder Rogerio Martins. Piston prides itself on being not just about music but also about building a family of artists creating special bonds that will stand the test of time.

Many of the tracks have featured in playlists from Richie Hawtin, Nick Harris and Michel De Hey to name a few, with Richie Hawtin hammering Piek – Susurros multiple times in one weekend. Tracks have also been featured heavily on download portals and are included in a lot of DJ charts as well. Rogerio has also been busy on the club circuit with a host of label nights gaining popularity across Portugal.

You can expect the very best on this compilation from the deep tech fuelled grooves of Valeria Croft’s “Hippy”, sublime blissed out beats from Vasco with “It’s never Too Late” and the solid deep house rhythm on Accatone’s “Future Us”. Rogerio Martins “I’ll Bring You Home”, Brett Lawrence’s “Remember That Jack” and GarcyNoise feat. Bizzarre DJ’s “Pussycats Howl” adds deep funk while a mixture of deep house and tech rounds up a brilliant year for Piston.

Piston’s artists enjoy much success on the DJ circuit and are also in demand for remixes on various labels and guest mixes on radio stations all over Europe.

The future for Piston is bright with many more projects in the works and with previous releases on vinyl being well received this can only mean more to come.

Piston serves up yet more superb deep house with a collaboration between Lights Electronika and Valeria Croft with their Connections EP. This not the first time these guys have been together, they have joined forces on labels like Wasabi and Minim.all, and they are also no strangers to Piston Recordings with a few releases under their belts.

Residing between Helsinki and St Petersburg Lights Electronika aka Max & Leon have been prominent producers since towards the end of the nineties. In 1999 they parted ways with each going on to learn more and more about music and become better producers. Leon pursued D n B and Max began to DJ, they came back together and Lights Electronika was ready to unleash more of their unique style of house.

Valeria Croft is a Russian producer and DJ, she has enjoyed many gigs around Europe and Asia and has a nice collection of releases to her name. She was more into a housey style but has moved into the deep house and funky side. She teamed up with Max & Leon in 2010 and a steady flow of popular tracks followed.

First up we have the title track Connections which can only be described as funky deep house, real cool vintage drums and percs with an almost bouncy bassline. Loads of FX fill up the space on this track and add extra weight, there is a spoken vocal coming in that works very well with the track.

Awesome People continues on the funky deep vibes, you can pick up on the unique vintage style of this track from the kicks and percussions, brilliant stuff. The tune builds slowly and then a killer crisp hat takes centre stage over a cool bassline and a Jamaican type vocal sample, again the FX are high quality and fit nicely into the tune.

Chilie is a much more melodic track with lots of different layers on the synths coming together to deliver a fine deep house vibe, very gritty sounds on the percs and a deep deep bassline. Real laid back groove on this and one that will keep you hooked into the many sounds that raid your senses.

Tuba Jam takes a route into the world of simply amazing drum and percussion arrangement, listen as the complex maze of sounds are perfectly crafted into an almost tribal feeling deep house joint. Great deep bassline turns funky little riffs and a melancholic string plays sweetly in the background. On the break the strings take centre stage until the track kicks back with an infectious rhythm.

After last year’s hit release in Piston Recordings, Brett Lawrence is back with two hot housey tunes, Remember That Jack? and Where You From?. Add a Valeria Croft and an Accatone remix to the potion and you get sonic magic!

Baltj_More is a new Piston Recordings artist. This is their first release with two original tracks, Una Pregunta and Never Deep. On top we added a couple of remixes from the habitués of the label, Accatone and Valeria Croft. Result… Another stunning release!